Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Mali claimed responsibility on Saturday for an attack on the country’s main military base, which it said was a response to government collaboration with Russian mercenaries.
Friday’s attack on the Kati base, 15 km from the capital Bamako, killed at least one soldier and represented the first time in Mali’s decade-long insurgency that Islamist militants had targeted a military camp so close to Bamako.
The attack, carried out with two car bombs, also injured six people, while seven assailants were killed and eight arrested, Malian military said.
The media unit of local al Qaeda affiliate Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) said in a statement that its affiliate Katiba Macina carried out the attack, according to a translation by the Intelligence Group website, which monitors jihadist statements. .
The Malian military blamed Katiba Macina for the attack in a statement on Friday.
The JNIM statement said a Malian fighter detonated a car bomb at the base’s gate and a Burkina Faso fighter detonated another inside the base, allowing more fighters to enter the camp.
He justified the attack by citing the presence in Mali of mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group, which began providing hundreds of fighters last year to support the Malian military and has since been accused by human rights groups and local residents of participating in massacres of civilians.
“We say to the government of Bamako: if you have the right to hire mercenaries to kill the helpless innocent, then we have the right to destroy and harm you,” he said.
The Russian government has acknowledged that Wagner personnel are in Mali, but the Malian government has described them as instructors for the Russian armed forces rather than private security contractors. Wagner has no public representation and has not commented on the allegations of human rights violations.
In a separate statement on Saturday, JNIM also claimed responsibility for attacks in five towns in central and southern Mali on Thursday, which the Malian military said killed 1 soldier and wounded 15 others.
Source: CNN Brasil
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